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Found this article linked from Yaraon and felt it should be translated.

Quote:

Welcome to Anime Questionnaire, the article where we talk with creators about the charm of their anime. Today's article focuses on the anime Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai!. We'll hear from the supervisor from Kyoto Animation, Tatsuya Ishihara, about the appeal of Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai!.

---Can you tell us a little about this work and why it attracts people?
"Chuunibyou" is a modern term that describes what's been called the "rebellious age" or a "troublesome puberty" in the past. Usually that type of behavior occurs around the second year in middle school, so that's why it's called "chuu-ni." Usually kids around that time will adopt a lifestyle that mimics their favorite musician or actor where they've adopted that person's posture/tone, but recently there's been a lot of influence from manga, anime, and video games. It might appear weird to older generations, but people working in the anime industry under 40 have experienced this phenomenon.

Our tale is a strange romantic story about a girl who's actively acting out this "chuunibyou" and a boy who has been cured from it.

---What did you keep in mind when working on the anime?
During the time when a person suffers from "chuunibyou," their mind is unstable and could easily fall into negative thoughts. Using this sort of adolescent theme would lead to very melancholic and gloomy visuals.

That type of gloomy atmosphere is not present in this work. We endeavored to make our heroine's chuunibyou actions cute and comedic. We also made the people around her, like the classmates, open-minded to her strange actions so that they wouldn't be mean to her.

---What made you happy when you finished this project? On the flip side, what troubled you about this show?
What made me happiest was taking a light novel from our company and making it into an anime. Just one novel would be nearly impossible to adapt, so we had to shuffle around the contents to make it easier.

As for what troubled me the most, it would be the work's main theme: the meaning of chuunibyou. Of course I would be expected to explain to the staff what we were trying to accomplish, but you wouldn't want to air out your own past when you're explaining it to them, would you? (laughs) As I remembered things that I had forgotten about my past, I started to sweat.

---Please tell us what to expect in the show from here onwards.

Spoiler for obvious reasons:

Spoiler for again:

The first half is the character introductory arc. Each character comes into the story until everyone is present. As our protagonist, Yuuta, and our heroine, Rikka, get to know each other, they become attracted to each other and the show becomes just like the title says. Various developments occur like "She's suffering from chuunibyou, but can I love her like she is?" and "Can chuunibyou patients love?" from here onwards.

Though the amount of serious scenes increase, we still include the comedic portions as well. We're depicting the awakening of Yuuta and Rikka's love for each other as well as when the hearts of their friends come together.

---Finally, can you give a word to the fans?
Though this series is about chuunibyou, it's not the "main theme" of this story. The show itself is an innocent romantic story. The phrase "chuunibyou" is a recent term to describe the uneasy mental state and actions felt/taken by boys and girls as they go through puberty. It's something standard for people of all generations. As you become more familiar with the characters, I would be happy if the fans became friends with Yuuta, Rikka, and everyone in the show.

For two years straight, I was in a class with 13 guys out of 42 people. Tell me again when the class has only 1 guy

That would be me... seriously it happened, in Science class. Well not all the time, there was a total of 5 guys I think that were on the list but 2 dropped the class, one hardly showed up, and the last (besides me and he was also my friend) liked to skip when there was a supply teacher. Therefore, I was the only guy in the class (including the teacher). But I didn't care, my teacher was super cute.

Not a translation nor something from the JP sites. I wanted to offer my thoughts on the first third of the series. No spoilers for anything upcoming.

What kind of show does Chuunibyou want to be? That was the biggest question and doubt that I had in my mind coming into the start of the anime. There were many ways that Ishihara/Hanada could take the concept/source material and adapt it into a visual form, and, despite what they said in interviews, there was no way for us to fully realize where they would take the story. The answer of course was "fulfill your expectations, and then surprise you with reality."

What do I mean by surprise? Take the very first scene we see with Yuuta. After packing away his chuunibyou materials, he has a girl climb down a rope and into his hands. This girl asks him if he saw something and then if he wanted to. We see his bewilderness and then she's disappeared... Was it magic? No, she's merely climbing down the rope slowly. They built up this fated meeting atmosphere and then surprised us with reality. The same thing happens in episode 2's park scene. We see Rikka's awakening and then a spectacular battle with Toka....until we see that she's just playing around with her sister while Yuuta/Kumin look on.

At the same time, these four episodes introduce us to the cast and how they're going to play their roles throughout the series. Of course the focus overall is on Rikka due to her main heroine status, but Kumin had a lot of focus in episodes 2-3, Dekomori played big roles in 3-4, and our expectations were reversed when Nibutani was revealed to have a chuunibyou past. They've balanced the cast well (with the exception of Yuuta being in every scene due to protagonist powers) so you don't have one girl overwhelmingly featured overall.

People have commented that the art style is a step down from Hyouka, but there was never any intent to be similar. Staff comments have said they aimed to portray reality softly and warm like illustrations while Hyouka had a less bright color palette for the majority of the series due to its protagonist's POV. Animation-wise, the series has excelled mostly in part due to the glorious delusional battles. Everything is smoothly drawn.

Music-wise, I'm enjoying the BGM by Nijine as well as the composition of everything else by ZAQ. The OP song is very fitting as is the ED. They both capture chuunibyou in different ways. Sparkling Daydream emphasizes the upbeat nature and reflects the hyperness Rikka exhibits at times while INSIDE IDENTITY feels like a battle show's ED to show the female cast's chuunibyouness. I personally like them both.

Overall, taking the anime as its own work, I've enjoyed the show much more than anything else this season. It's only behind the completed Hyouka for me overall this year. I've already pre-ordered the BDs in anticipation of how Ishihara/Hanada decided to finish the series and I can't wait to start work on translating the booklets. While it's different than the novel, it's different in the good ways that make me entertained. The reception it's gotten not only here, but in various boards/forums/reviews/etc around the world has pleased me beyond anything I can say. All the time I spent translating various details feels like it's paid off tremendously. Here's to 8 more fantastic episodes!

Not a translation nor something from the JP sites. I wanted to offer my thoughts on the first third of the series. No spoilers for anything upcoming.

What kind of show does Chuunibyou want to be? That was the biggest question and doubt that I had in my mind coming into the start of the anime. There were many ways that Ishihara/Hanada could take the concept/source material and adapt it into a visual form, and, despite what they said in interviews, there was no way for us to fully realize where they would take the story. The answer of course was "fulfill your expectations, and then surprise you with reality."

What do I mean by surprise? Take the very first scene we see with Yuuta. After packing away his chuunibyou materials, he has a girl climb down a rope and into his hands. This girl asks him if he saw something and then if he wanted to. We see his bewilderness and then she's disappeared... Was it magic? No, she's merely climbing down the rope slowly. They built up this fated meeting atmosphere and then surprised us with reality. The same thing happens in episode 2's park scene. We see Rikka's awakening and then a spectacular battle with Toka....until we see that she's just playing around with her sister while Yuuta/Kumin look on.

At the same time, these four episodes introduce us to the cast and how they're going to play their roles throughout the series. Of course the focus overall is on Rikka due to her main heroine status, but Kumin had a lot of focus in episodes 2-3, Dekomori played big roles in 3-4, and our expectations were reversed when Nibutani was revealed to have a chuunibyou past. They've balanced the cast well (with the exception of Yuuta being in every scene due to protagonist powers) so you don't have one girl overwhelmingly featured overall.

People have commented that the art style is a step down from Hyouka, but there was never any intent to be similar. Staff comments have said they aimed to portray reality softly and warm like illustrations while Hyouka had a less bright color palette for the majority of the series due to its protagonist's POV. Animation-wise, the series has excelled mostly in part due to the glorious delusional battles. Everything is smoothly drawn.

Music-wise, I'm enjoying the BGM by Nijine as well as the composition of everything else by ZAQ. The OP song is very fitting as is the ED. They both capture chuunibyou in different ways. Sparkling Daydream emphasizes the upbeat nature and reflects the hyperness Rikka exhibits at times while INSIDE IDENTITY feels like a battle show's ED to show the female cast's chuunibyouness. I personally like them both.

Overall, taking the anime as its own work, I've enjoyed the show much more than anything else this season. It's only behind the completed Hyouka for me overall this year. I've already pre-ordered the BDs in anticipation of how Ishihara/Hanada decided to finish the series and I can't wait to start work on translating the booklets. While it's different than the novel, it's different in the good ways that make me entertained. The reception it's gotten not only here, but in various boards/forums/reviews/etc around the world has pleased me beyond anything I can say. All the time I spent translating various details feels like it's paid off tremendously. Here's to 8 more fantastic episodes!

Great write up, and it expresses my own reaction to the show better than anything I could write. My own biggest worry was that this would devolve into a harem anime, and that thankfully hasn't happened--and the characters have proved to be more interesting than I expected. I kinda figured it'd at least be gorgeous visually, and have plenty of moe, but it's been a better series than that--and for that I'm thankful.